Up-to-the minute updates and insights from the Red Wings locker room at home and on the road. By Chuck Pleiness of The Macomb Daily.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Happy days

Call me a geek, but this press release made me happy. As a long-time subscriber to the Center Ice package, I've never understood why they only show games once. Here's the big problem ... they're all going on around the same time. So for the playoffs, Center Ice will repeat games four or five times. Hopefully, they'll do that during the regular season too ...

NEW YORK, April 15, 2009 –Tax Day has a bright side for hockey fans. Starting today, April 15, and through the second round of the playoffs, subscribers to the NHL Center Ice out-of-market package will receive replays of same day games. In this new enhancement which is free to customers, the NHL Center Ice package will re-air each current day’s game beginning approximately one hour after the live game ends so that fans can see games they might have missed. Each game will replay in its entirety and will repeat continuously overnight and the next day, on the same channel, until the following day’s live games begin.

The “Replay Game” feature means that there will be approximately 4-5 replays for single, scheduled games. Live games scheduled back-to-back will be replayed in that same order, so that there will be approximately 2-3 replays before game-time the following day. No games will be bumped from the package to accommodate replay games. Blackout and other restrictions apply.

Nice little bonus from CenterIce, but the real problem is this: I'm an out-of-market fan who paid $160 for CenterIce, and I STILL can't get Saturday's game two. I'd have to shell out for the NHL Network in order to watch.

The way the NHL alienates fans by forcing them to buy TWO overpriced packages is a slap in the face. And even if you buy both packages, you still can't get most of the games in HD!

A PR firm sent out the release for InDemand Networks. Not sure why it wasn't a better known fact. I have Comcast and couldn't see it on my schedule, just had to click on the channel and see whether the replay started yet or not.